


The Fall

by marauder_in_warblerland



Series: Klaine Advent Challenge 2014 [4]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-28 10:59:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2729945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marauder_in_warblerland/pseuds/marauder_in_warblerland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s autumn of season three, and Blaine has one too many things on his mind. [Written for the Klaine Advent Challenge 2014]</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fall

“Are we meeting Finn and Rachel at the music store?” Blaine asks, stepping onto a crispy leaf with a satisfying crunch. “I know that Finn was talking about going to the game store with Puck, but it sounded like he might change his mind.”

Kurt glances over to Blaine’s side of the sidewalk with a sigh. “Not today. I could have gotten Finn on board, but Rachel’s just joined a new dance class at the rec center and, in her words, one trip to Between the Sheets isn’t worth sacrificing any chance she ever has at Broadway stardom.”

The wind kicks up a gust and Blaine tucks his hands further into his pockets. The autumn chill in September is nothing to complain about, but it always comes as a surprise. No matter how many times he’s watched summer turn to fall. Something about August always feels like it will last forever. “Does the Gerber baby still have her spooked?” he asks.

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Kurt says, staring down the street toward the red brick and steel buildings of Lima’s tiny downtown. As they walk, his lips twitch into a faint smile, as though he’s watching a scene that Blaine can’t see. “She’s turned into Rachel 4.0, now with even more rehearsal time. The girl wakes up two hours before school to practice songs that we might sing for sectionals, and that’s just what she’s told me. For all I know, she’s discovered a way to do away with sleep entirely.”

Blaine hums his agreement and listens as the soles of his shoes clip against the cold concrete. Rachel would get rid of sleep if she could, but so would Kurt. He’s never seen them as tightly wound as when they got back from their trip to the club for painfully talented NYADA students-to-be. Kurt had spent the entire evening making scrapbooks of design details for musicals he would never design, while Rachel made a list of non-artistic career options that she might, perhaps consider under duress.

It was an intense evening, but that’s what happens when you have intense friends and an intense boyfriend. The intensity multiplies and, not for the first time, Blaine wonders if he shouldn’t be spending more time honing his craft. He could make the space in his schedule, now that he doesn’t have to spend forty-five minutes driving to and from school, and he could use the practice.

As they walk, Blaine pivots and steps easily into a turn, tucking his arms into his body and ending with a straight-legged sweep through the leaves at the side of the sidewalk. Kurt glances over, mouth round with an impressed _ohhhh_ , but it still isn’t right. He wobbles on the landing and the arms— Blaine scowls down at his feet. He can’t help it if his aesthetic is a bit too "boy band," too polished and sexless for a public school performance. Finn and Sam would have the same problem if they’d spent the last year heading up an all-male team of prep boys who thought monogrammed cufflinks were unnecessarily aggressive.

Blaine wipes the scowl from his face before Kurt can ask. It’s silly to get hung up on the gaps between Dalton and McKinley. He’d made the change before, under less pleasant conditions, and he could do it again. He just needs more practice. He slides into another turn, more solid this time, and he smiles at the spiral of dry red leaves in his wake. It’s beautiful, like a frost pattern on a window pane. The pattern will disappear as soon as someone else walks down the sidewalk, but for the moment it feels like his own delicate signature on the ground. Blaine Anderson was here, and he was dancing.

It takes him more than a second to realize that Kurt’s speaking again, quietly. “Rachel isn’t the only one going insane,” Kurt says, still looking past the street and toward the horizon. “I keep thinking about college applications and getting scared all over again.” Blaine offers his hand, but Kurt waves him away with a gentle, open palm. “No, no, I’m fine. The whole process just feels massively strange. It’s like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff. There’s water and rocks all the way down at the bottom and I don’t have a parachute, but for some crazy reason I’m getting ready to jump. Isn’t that nuts?”

“No,” Blaine responds quickly. And he means it. That doesn’t sound crazy at all.

“I’m sorry,” Kurt smiles. “I’m being melodramatic. I suppose that’s what comes from meeting all of your doppelgangers on the same day.” He gives a self-deprecating shrug and quickens his step, leaving Blaine just slightly behind.

“Mmm hmmm,” Blaine hums something like agreement, but he can’t stop thinking about Kurt’s cliff above troubled waters. For some reason, it’s easy to imagine himself there, safe and high above the rocks. In his imagination, he doesn’t have to jump. There isn’t even any logical reason to risk the fall, but he still understands the need. He understands the rush of adrenaline that asks—no— _demands_ to find out what happens next if he steps away from safety and into the unknown. 

Kurt’s right. Applying for college and going on to. . whatever happens next is like taking a nosedive off of Mt. Kilimanjaro, but he and Rachel aren’t the only ones who’ve chosen to fly or die trying. Blaine shakes off the thought as they approach the store. He’s fine. Or, he’s going to be fine. He just needs to practice.

“Blaine!” Kurt calls from in front of the store. “Would you mind messing up those pants?”

Blaine looks down at his red Brooks Brothers chinos. They’re new, but not _new_ new. “Maybe,” he says. “Why?”

“Tina says that I can’t get you to do leaf-angels,” Kurt responds, holding up his phone like evidence, “and there’s this perfect pile, just waiting for a selfie . . .” He gestures, apologetically, toward the leaves piled just off of the sidewalk. It is a lovely pile.

“And why didn’t she ask you?” Blaine asks, eyebrows raised. 

“Because she knows that I’m wearing Alexander McQueen, and that I would still do anything to prove her wrong,” Kurt smiles. “Please? I promise to buy you any sheet music in the store for one leaf angel selfie. Just one.”

Kurt bites his lip, and as the fading light hits the high planes of his cheek, Blaine knows that it doesn’t matter. He could have been wearing a suit made by god’s own hand, and he still would have gone dumpster diving for that smile.

“Okay,” he says, matching Kurt’s toothy grin. “I’m gonna stand in front of the leaves, and you tell me when.”

Blaine stretches his arms out wide, leans back over the pile until the back of his heels just touch the edge, and when Kurt says _go_ , he falls.


End file.
